Runaway Royalty
by Tuph
Summary: 15 years after the Avatar ended the war, Firelord Zuko tasked team Avatar to track and destroy the remaining Ozai supporters. Toph, preferring to work alone is one night awakened by none other than the daughter of one team Avatar's greatest foes. Now Toph is faced with the decision to imprison this young runaway, or save her, endangering her life and the safety of the entire world.


Chapter 1: The Runaway

Toph lay stretched out in her earth tent feeling the animals of the night come alive around her. The shuffling of tiny insect legs seemed to cover as much of the forest as the grass did. She thumped the ground with a tight fist, compacting the tent and floor so that the dirt would be too hard for any wayward driller-bees or scorpion-ants to burrow in while she slept.

The war had been over for 15 years now. Zuko's reign as firelord was still in its budding stages. Toph thought back to the months she stayed in the fire capital training with Aang, Zuko, Katara, and Sokka for what everyone suspected would happen after Zuko's coronation. They all knew that peace would never settle over the four nations as long as Ozai still had supporters and followers still loyal to him. A vast number of the Fire nation army had shifted their alliance to Zuko when Ozai was defeated by Aang all those years ago. They had grown tired of the previous Fire lord's brute and intimidating tactics when it came to ruling the Fire Kingdom. The Avatar and the Fire Lord working together was the push they needed to stand and face the Ozai supporters and within six months the fire nation was purged of all rebels.

Closing her eyes from one dark world to another, Toph let the noises and motions all around her fade into the darkness of sleep. She dreamed of the last time she saw her parents. Her father's sickly state at the Bei Fong residence from her last visit haunted her dreams. After the war ended Toph had begun sending messenger hawks to her family to assure them of her wellbeing. Upon the arrival of her first letter, her overprotective father sent out an entire battalion of earth benders to retrieve his daughter from wherever she was. His agents scoured the nations looking for Toph. And some of them were unfortunate enough to find her. The best earth benders in the world were in Lord Bei Fong's pocket and one by one the fell in droves to her newly perfected technique. Metal bending. Toph wore two light metal gauntlets crafted by Zuko's finest welders, so she would always have bending material handy, same as there was earth everywhere she traveled. Willingly.

A pair of unfamiliar feet woke Toph from her uneasy sleep. It wasn't uncommon for her to have nightmares but the only ones that bothered her were always about her family. The feet belonged to a little girl about 200 feet away, scared, and running right into Toph's camp. Sheathing her tent Toph called out to the girl with a simple "Hey!"

The girl's swift feet closed the distance to Toph within seconds. She barreled into Toph with enough force to topple the master earth bender.

"Help me please! I don't want to go back. They can't make me go back please!"

Toph lifted the surprisingly strong child off her lap and plopped her on the ground to her right.  
In a quick motion she burrowed back into Toph's lap and latched her arms around her waist like a vice. As much as she struggled Toph could not get the child to let go!

"Kid, get off of me. What's your problem?" was all Toph could squeeze out under the child's bear-ape hug.

"Please Ms. Bei Fong you must help me! I don't want to go back there." She cried hysterically.  
"They're chasing me, please save me. Please.." she finished before collapsing unconscious yet still clutching onto Toph for dear life. Unraveling the young girl from her waist, Toph laid the mysterious child down next to her and stood to get a good feel for the girl. Focusing on her heartbeat Toph pictured her to be about four feet tall; extremely nimble from the way she had gotten so close before Toph detected her. Her lithe build reminded Toph of the way Aang was shaped during the fight to end the war with Ozai. If she didn't know any better Toph would've thought the young girl was an air bender. However she knew of only air bender, the world only knew of one air bender.

After thinking it over for a few moments, Toph came to the conclusion that there was nothing to do for the girl but escort her to the next town over and leave her in the care of someone there. She had to think about her mission with the utmost urgency before anything, even if she was a scared and lost child. Toph bent to pick up the sleeping girl when she felt a familiar rumbling deep within the ground. It shook the trees around her and startled the surrounding wildlife out of their nests springing the night to life. The girl jolted awake and with eyes wide with fear, screamed "They're here."

Toph raised a wide platform under the child separating her from whatever fight she was getting ready to engage in. The sound of grinding metal filled the air as two fire nation tanks pulled into the clearing. They screeched to a stop as four fire benders jumped out at ready. Their armor was scorched and melted in places like they just lost a fight against a master fire bender.

"I've been looking for you jerks for some time now. It's about time you stopped hiding and faced me."  
Toph took her stance as the fire benders closed in on her slowly.

"We aren't here for you Bei Fong. As much as it would please our leader to be rid of you permanently, you aren't priority any more. She is." The leader finished by pointing at the girl who rather than cower away as she had been expected to, glared at him defiantly.

"Well, how's about you come get her!" Toph shouted. She fired off two boulders in the direction of the leader who barely had enough time to react. They soared past him as he wheeled left and struck his unlucky lieutenant in the chest sending him ten feet back and into forced slumber. The fire benders spread out to back Toph against the platform the girl now tried to shimmy down. Toph flattened the silver gauntlet on her right wrist into a thick disk catching and extinguishing a fireball that was aimed at the side of her head. Zuko had the metal specially made for her mission. The bracelets could endure high levels of heat without harming Toph's wrists. Toph parried several more shots all the while firing back a few of her own. She split the ground under one guy's feet and heard him squeal when he did an unpracticed split and an "umpf" as she knocked the air out his body with a boulder to the chest. Fire benders had become a cinch for her to fight. The lower level foot soldiers of Ozai's organization were the easiest. The fire they shot was much slower and much cooler than the more experienced benders. Toph could wait to feel the incoming heat and then shift the ground accordingly underneath her to remove herself from the fire's path.

"You guys should really get a new job." Toph teased.  
"Or you could just give up and take me to your boss so I can kick his butt too!"

Infuriated, the leader screamed at his one remaining soldier to take her out and grab the girl. A soft thump behind her caught Toph's attention and as she turned to it the lead fire bender caught her off guard with a heavy blow that she barely deflected with her shield. The blast threw her against the platform knocking her down and unto something soft.

"I can help you Ms. Bei Fong. Let me help." The girl said.

Toph tried standing but the girl pushed her back down. "I can help you." She repeated.  
The girl ran out in front of Toph and assumed a fire bending position that Toph hadn't encountered in years.

"Princess, don't do this. Your mother wants you back by her side where you should be."  
The lead fire bender had spoke to the girl softly but he still hadn't released the tension in his stance. If anything, Toph noticed he'd tensed up even more.

"I'm not going back with you. If my mother wants me, she can come and get me." The girl's words were final. The two fire benders stared each other down while Toph had regained her composure a few feet away. The girl struck first, firing off a volley of fireballs so intense they scorched the ground as they soared toward the final fire bending rebel. The leader expertly dodged the fireballs with a series of flips and twists in the air. They began trading blows going back and forth, parrying and firing shots automatically. Toph began to wonder about the girl. Whomever taught her was not only a master fire bender, but angry. As expertly executed as the girl's bending was, her moves were intensified with an underlying anger Toph's past knew all too well. Even through her blindness Toph knew without knowing the color of the fire that shot forth from this small girl's hands. A hard thump sounded as the young prodigy blew the fire bending rebel into a nearby tree.

"Princess Azulin, please. Your mother-"

"My mother doesn't want me! She wants my power. She doesn't love me. She has never loved me!" Azulin screamed at the downed rebel cutting him off.

"Princess, Lady Azula is doing all she can to bring you back to her." He pleaded half heartedly.  
Azula's name sent an all too familiar chill up Toph's spine. She remembered all those years ago Zuko's failure at the boiling rock. His initial plan was to close the prison due to its Warden, Mai's uncle's opposition of Zuko's rule. He simmered down after some persuading from Mai as she still had feelings for Zuko which they eventually rekindled. The Warden agreed under the condition that Zuko publically announce that the break out he orchestrated years back be wiped from existence and his record of no successful jail breaks reinstated. Zuko agreed and had Azula and Ozai sent there but some time later, they rallied the entire prison with a plan only a tactical genius of Azula's caliber could muster and the whole prison was destroyed in the process. And now, years later, Toph stood in the presence of Azula's daughter, fire bending royalty.

"I'll take it from here kid." Toph interjected. Azulin turned to Toph and ran behind her, half hiding herself from the Ozai rebel she'd just beat to a pulp.

"You dare side with our enemy child?" The fire bender leaned against the tree trunk of the tree he'd been blasted into. Blue flames flickered on the tips of his shoulder spikes like lit wax candles. The rest of front side armor had been burned through exposing his chest to the night chill.

"Tough talk for a soldier who just got beat by a seven year old kid." Toph shot back at the defeated rebel. He muttered something under his breath Toph couldn't make out and said nothing more. When he didn't respond to any questions about Azula's whereabouts Toph bent the tracks of the tanks into restraints and left him tied to the same tree he rested against. With Azulin's help she dragged the three unconscious rebels toward the ten ton machete' swan she crafted out of the other fire nation tank. She then bent the wings of the swan tightly around the rebels securing them until she felt like sending the authorities to come free and imprison them. Feeling satisfied with her work she turned to Azulin who until then had refrained from saying much to her. Uncertain how to start talking to her Toph said the only thing that came to mind.

"So you're Azula's daughter?" It wasn't much, but Toph needed to know what this girl knew and fast. Everyday Ozai's rebel army grew stronger and now knowing that Azula spearheaded his soldiers her urgency increased ten-fold.

"Thank you for saving me Ms. Bei Fong." Azulin turned to run away into the night but Toph caught her by the ankles with iron shackles similar to the Dai Li handcuffs. Instead of clumsily falling to the ground, Azulin caught herself with one arm, lifting her body into a modified handstand and melting the chain that held the brace together with the superheated grasp of her free hand. She then rolled back onto her feet and sped away forcing Toph to give chase.

At full run Toph was no match for Azulin's grace and evasiveness. Every rock Toph threw to hinder Azulin's charge was dodged. Every hurdle over a raised earth blockade cleared easily enough to make Toph infuriated. It was like chasing Azula all over again! However, after several minutes of running Toph began closing in on Azulin. Just as she expected, her exhaustion from her time on the run from the retrieval party had begun to eat away the adrenaline of her fight with Ozai's commander. Toph felt Azulin's foot catch on a gang of vines grounding her just long enough for Toph to trap her feet within the earth.

"Phew!" Toph exhaled, slowly walking up to the struggling Azulin. "Y'know, you remind me of my friend Twinkle Toes when you run."

Azulin stopped squirming as Toph approached her. With both feet encased in dirt there was no escaping anyway.

"What are you going to do to me?" Azulin asked, sounding more like a hardened prisoner than a young girl. Toph lowered herself into a sitting position and raised a throne like chair under her bottom just before she lost her balance.

"Why are you running away?" was all Toph asked. It wasn't the best approach but politeness wasn't the first thing on Toph's mind after all the trouble she'd just saved her from only to be rewarded with a free run through the forest.

Azulin remained tight lipped and stone faced in the dark. It was amazing the difference between the girl Toph first encountered in need of help and this diamond skinned runaway stuck in the dirt. Toph sat in silence for a few moments wondering how best to get Azulin to open up to her. After a long enough pause, Toph released Azulin's ankles from the earth beneath her.

"Look, I can help you Azulin. I know what it's like to run away from your family. Their plans for you. The restrictions, ridiculous expectations, not to mention the fact that your mom is…crazy."

Azulin laughed a little which forced Toph to laugh with her.

"You ran away too?" Azulin asked, sitting down on the floor in front of Toph.

"Yeah, a long time ago." Toph told Azulin of her decision to leave her family's estate to help Aang learn earth bending. "My mom and Dad were very protective of me because of my blindness. It wasn't until I learned to earth bend in these underground caverns with the help of a group of badgermoles that I realized, being blind isn't as bad as they made it. Badgermoles are blind but they are far from helpless. At first I would slip away from my guards at our estate so I could fight in this earth bending league in my hometown. Needless to say I kicked some serious butt." Toph boasted. Azulin sat quietly listening to Toph's story. "Next thing I knew I was the undefeated champion, that is until the Avatar stepped into the ring, even though technically he cheated because he air bended in an earth bending fight he eventually won me over with his story about saving the world from your grandpa Ozai." Toph said a little bitterly. "It wasn't an easy choice to leave, but it was the right one. For me and the world. I had to show my parents that I wasn't the helpless little flower they raised me as. So I left them. Of course, my father thought Aang kidnapped me and he sent some bounty hunters after me, but that all got worked out." She said with a smile. Toph's sightless eyes stared directly at Azulin which she knew could be a little unnerving so she averted her eyes to the sky. "You should've seen him. Aang couldn't move a pebble two feet if he tried all day long. And he really did try all day one time!" Azulin burst into laughter at Toph's recounting of Aang's difficulty learning to earth bend. Toph studied Azulin closely while they talked. She pictured a mini Azula in front of her laughing and smiling. The thought seemed impossible yet amusing at the same time. Toph just hoped that Azulin wasn't as corrupted and twisted on the inside as her mother.


End file.
